With the advent of composite structures has come the drilling of apertures in and the removal of fasteners from composite laminates as a frequent production and maintenance operation. Drilling and fastener removal, however, may cause delamination of the laminates.
A method to detect delamination of composite laminates may involve the performance of ultrasonic checks around the aperture which is drilled or from which a fastener is removed. This may be accomplished by manually passing a transducer around the aperture or using a circle template to scan the transducer around the aperture. Interpretation may be made using an A-scan oscilloscope trace. However, this technique may require that operations stop while the scan is made. Moreover, the A-scan results may require interpretation by a certified operator.
Therefore, an ultrasonic aperture scanning system and method are needed which indicate whether or not delamination exists in a composite laminate adjacent to an aperture and which can be operated or implemented by an unskilled operator.